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“The UK is getting way ahead of the European Commission on mergers,” Zach Meyers, research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, says. Influential member-states such as France talk tough on tech companies but Brussels’ powerful competition authority remains gripped by old orthodoxies when deciding on multinational mergers in the digital sector.

Brexit has led to less trade and lower growth, with the UK economy 5.5 per cent poorer than it would have been if Britain had stayed in the EU, according to a study by the Centre for European Reform. ...And research carried out by think tanks the Centre for European Reform and UK in a Changing Europe suggests that Brexit has led to a shortfall of 330,000 people in the UK labour force, mostly in the low-skilled economy, compared to how things would have been if we had stayed in the EU.

Thankfully, we did not have the hardest Brexit possible, so that figure (the equivalent would be £50bn a year) came down a bit – which makes the £40bn annually that John Springford, deputy director at the Centre for European Reform, calculates is the ongoing Brexit deficit feel about right.

«Ces concessions envers les frugaux, emmenés par l’Allemagne, vont se heurter à une vive opposition non seulement à Paris, mais aussi à Rome et à Madrid par exemple, pose Sander Tordoir, du Centre for European Reform. Ces pays ont été trop passifs ces dernières semaines, en laissant la Commission esseulée face aux récriminations de Berlin. Ils vont désormais devoir trouver un moyen de contre-attaquer à la table des ministres des Finances», estime cet économiste.

Zach Meyers, senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform, described the list as "not especially surprising.""It is notable that, as expected, very few European companies will face the toughest regulation under the DSA - with a few exceptions such as Booking.com," he told Euronews. 

“Any chance of a prestigious international role might be stymied were former US President Donald Trump or a like-minded candidate to seize the White House next year, said Zach Meyers, a competition policy fellow at the Centre for European Reform. “There’s a lot of bad blood between Vestager and Trump, so she may be unable to secure American support if the Republicans win.”